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SAVING, RENDERING, AND PRINTING PROJECTS CHP. 17
More about the Wave64 and Perfect Clarity Audio formats
The Wave64 (.w64) and Perfect Clarity Audio (.pca) formats are proprietary formats developed by Sony
Media Software to work around some limitations inherent in other formats. Currently, neither is compatible
with many other applications and may not be playable in other media players, but both are excellent choices
for Sony Media Software projects.
• Wave64 files work around the maximum file size limitation inherent in the WAV format. The Wave64
format has no maximum file size and is useful in long format productions.
• Perfect Clarity Audio is a compressed format that is completely lossless. Unlike MP3 and other highly
compressed formats which are lossy, 100% of the quality of your audio is maintained by using the PCA
format.
More about video formats
When you create a final movie, you will find that there are dozens of formats to choose from, each having
many customization options. The destination of your final movie is the most important factor in selecting a
format. Movies created for broadcast television must be of the highest quality, but for many other
destinations, such as a CD-ROM or the Internet, you may have to sacrifice some quality when you render
the file. Heavy compression may create visible artifacts in the video, such as when you create streaming
video for the Internet. Every case is different and it is necessary to experiment to obtain the best results.
VCR or television
If you are creating a movie that you want to send back out to a television, a VCR or a camcorder, there is
only one choice: use the same settings as the original video.
There is no way to improve upon the quality of your original video (as far as compression is concerned). If
you have captured your video at 640X480, at 24 fps in an MJPEG codec, then that is how you should set up
your final movie. This is the only way to maintain 100% quality. For more information, see Working in DV
format on page 234.
Computer
This can be the most complicated case because you have to decide exactly which computer it is going to be
played back on, how fast it is, what software is installed, and how you are going to get it there (e.g., burn to a
CD). Your biggest concern with creating a video file is compatibility. When you create a movie, you must
select a specific codec to compress the video. That same codec must then be used to view the movie. This is
not a problem if you are viewing the movie on your own computer, since the appropriate codec is already
installed. To ensure that your audience has the appropriate software, you should use a fairly universal codec.
Intel Indeo, Cinepak, and QuickTime (which is not a codec, but installs with a number of different codecs)
are all widely available.
Internet
When video on the Internet is discussed, people almost always mean streaming. There are two streaming
media formats that come with Vegas software: RealMedia and Windows Media Format. There is nothing
particularly magical about streaming video, and the three rules of creating video files for the Internet are as
follows: compress, compress, and compress. The smaller the file size the better, and this inevitably results in a
loss of quality. There are two main places where you can save space: frame dimensions and frame rate.
Typical Internet video files should be about 160X120 and should rarely exceed 320X240. This is not very
big, and video with lots of detail does not translate well to this frame size. The frame rate should also be as
low as possible, with 15 fps being a good maximum. Fast action, pans, and moving backgrounds (e.g., tree
leaves or ocean waves) do not compress well. Streaming media files must be placed on a special Internet
server in order to stream properly.